Estevan Mercury 20231129

Page 1

Need A Gift??

Carlton Greeting Cards • Lottery Tickets • Watkins Products • Local market of artisans • Dr. Ho's products • OOFOS Sandals • Gift Cards • Gift Items

HENDERS DRUGS 1220 4th Street, Estevan • 306.634.3666

Monday to Friday - 9am to 9pm • Saturday - 9am to 5pm • Sunday & Holidays - 12pm to 4pm

Henders Drugs is your locally owned and operated pharmacy for over 50 years.

Festival of Lights. Woodlawn’s festival is back with a kick off. Details on PAGE A3

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2023

READ IT ONLINE AT

Students take top spot, win $22,500, at Estevan’s first-ever pitch contest Get holiday ready. Downtown association brings a bigger and better Miracle on Fourth back. PAGE A7

HeyLetters Kids to !!

us your LETTERS TO SANTA Santa promo.

nt to help you get your message to Santa by ublishing it in the Estevan Mercury ! Santa does read the Estevan Mercury)!

Find our initial 2023 letter r message to Santa Claus, take a picture of it mail it to contests@estevanmercury.ca. collection on nclude your name and age. Be sure to write very dark and PAGE A8clearly!

One lucky letter will be randomly chosen to win $100.

ll letters will be entered in the draw, ut due to space not all can be printed.

ng in your letter, you give permission to publish your child’s full name and their letter.

adline for submissions is December 14, 2023

Crossing the 100 mark. Senior living special tells a beautiful story of an Oxbow resident. PAGE A10

Hooky for Hockey. Bruins win in front of school students. PAGE A13

ELF65

Wyatt Thompson, left, and Logan Stewart were the winners of the Southeast Techhub’s inaugural pitch competition Friday night at the Southeast College’s Estevan campus.

By David Willberg The Southeast Techhub’s first-ever pitch competition for Estevan showcased plenty of ingenuity and creativity, and it was two Grade 12 students from the Carnduff Education Complex who took home the top prize. The event was held Friday night at the Southeast College’s Estevan campus. Dozens of people turned out to learn more about the tech-based innovations presented by the hopefuls. The pitch competition had a similar format to the TV shows Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank. Each of the entrepreneurs was given 15 minutes to explain their idea and what they would do with the $22,500 cash prize if they were selected as the winner. Then the five judges peppered the hopefuls with questions. Logan Stewart and Wyatt Thompson were selected as the winners for their business, Smart Irrigation, which is a portable irrigation system.

Keith Hesketh explained his proposed business, Long Creek Aquaponics.

Both come from an agriculture background, and they believe their idea would benefit farmers and ranchers while helping with food security. “Farmers right now have to buy an irrigation [system] for every field and that irrigation system is not actually able to reach the corners of the field,” said Thompson. They said afterwards they were stunned to win the pitch competition. “Ever since we started, everyone has been quite impressed with it,” said Thompson. “I didn’t think it would go this far.” They marvelled at the other ideas that were presented, and Stewart added he wouldn’t have wanted to be one of the judges. Not only is their design able to be moved to different sections of land, but it can also provide water to an entire parcel. They believe more farmers would turn to them because of their concept’s practicality. Stewart added it would become a time saver. “It would extend in the field to reach the corners and then shrink up and fold up for transport,” said Stewart. While the portable unit has to be longer to reach the corners, they predicted it would save farmers money in the long run because of its advantages. They believe their primary competition would be from centre-pivot irrigation systems. Thompson said those are well built and known to farmers, but they aren’t portable and it takes time to assemble them and take them apart. He added that centre-pivot misses about 15 per cent of a field, which on a quarter section of land, amounts to 24 acres. That adds up when a farmer has over a dozen quarter sections. “The telescopic feature on this allows us to make it road legal so you don’t have to do any disassembly … you just simply unhook your water source, and fold onto it and hook onto it … and

bring it to your next field,” said Thompson. They would hook into the water in the same way as current irrigation systems. Thompson and Stewart came up with the idea last year as a school project. Their respective farms were going through a drought and they were trying to come up with an idea that could help farmers. They presented Smart Irrigation at a regional science fair, advanced to the national science fair and have been working on the concept ever since. “We are still improving on the models to this day,” said Thompson. Stewart and Thompson don’t know how much it will cost to produce or sell one of the units, and they’re not sure how long it will take before it’s available on the market. In the meantime, they’re going to keep working on the project, they’ll finish their Grade 12 years, and they’re going to seek post-secondary education. The money from winning the pitch competition will go towards getting the project into development. The other presenters were: *Steven Hansen, a worker in the oil and gas industry who is the founder of StreamTech, a cloud-based business management platform. It was built to digitize and optimize safety, compliance, equipment management and employees in the energy sector. StreamTech aims to help energy companies digitize their day-to-day operations, which he said would be a time saver. *Rod Cullen is an employee of the Westmoreland Mining LLC who started Predator Inspections earlier this year. Using sensors on drones, invisible energy is captured, which benefits businesses. He also uses sensors to accurately create digital twins, which are hundreds of photos stitched together into a 3-D model for organization communication and business efficiency. The digital twins can be used for preventative maintenance purposes, and the company’s technology A2 » PITCH

Unwrap the season with the gift that sparkles! Co-op Car Wash 5-Packs are now available.

See us at 417 Kensington Ave or 802 4th Street, Estevan


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.